Startlingly immersive with the craft and ability to turn the listener into a castaway lost in an expansive seduction of suggestive pop majesty within a dreamy soundscape in its rawest breath, the debut album from Passenger Peru is an experience you cannot help licking your lips over before each and every encounter. It is a mouthwatering collection of warm and elegant persuasions bred in an exploration which is bold and bravely adventurous. The self-titled album is as mentioned pop in its rawest most potent form but with an inspiring scourge of creative devilry and melodic mesmerism twisted into a hypnotic and at times wonderfully demonic dance.
Passenger Peru comes from the creative minds and passions of Justin Stivers (vocals, guitar, bass, synth, drums, drum machines) and Justin Gonzales (vocals, guitar, synth, piano, samples), the former one time bassist with The Antlers for their Hospice album. The seeds for the Brooklyn based project are said to have started four years ago when the two musicians met and evolved into the Stivers led band Pet Ghost Project. A year in preparation, Passenger Peru is mouthwatering sonic scenery composed into something unique from essences of garage rock and shoegaze, psychedelic, alternative rock and more. With plenty of peaks and very minimal lows, if any at all, the lo-fi, hi-quality flight is raucous spellbinding pop brought in its most primal and beauteous magnificence.
The album immediately takes the listener to a scintillating pinnacle with its opening pair of songs, a height the album never 
quite emulates again though it thrills consistently trying. First song Your Hunger emerges from a cinematic melodic swoon and following studio doodling launches one of the most exciting and impressively tempting starts to a song heard in a long time. Guitar and bass instantly secure the fullest attention as they virtually gnaw on the ears with the latter offering an almost carnivorous tone to its dark enticement. With mutually attractive rhythmic teasing alongside, the rapacious sound conjured by the pair continue to coax and lure in the strongest lustful reaction and hunger, a post punk essence bringing thoughts of Joy Division and Gang Of Four to mind prowling the imagination whilst framing the excellent mellow and soothing vocals. It is delicious mix with sinister spirals of cold sound amid glorious flames of melodic tenderness colliding and uniting for a quite stunning provocation. Complete with an irresistible repetitious gait to bass and rhythms alongside a quite saucy groove which also hardly veers from its prime intent, the song sets the highest plateau for the album to keep up.
In the Absence of Snow steps up next to stroll that pedestal with ease, its opening acoustically sculpted guitar tantalising and the again snarling throaty bass tempting exceptionally addictive and successful in igniting even greater rapture in the imagination and emotions. Best described as the Jesus and Mary Chain meets House Of Love whilst the revelry of Ok Go! is at play, the bait laid down for the ears and emotions to partake in, is again virulently impossible to refuse or not find a greedy need for. Rock pop at its finest with a fiery solo and another spine of repetition kissed captivation, the track continues the album’s unassailable submission of the passions. With an impressive lyrical craft and insight also at work, which admittedly comes second best to the sound in attention taking over the first couple of plays, Passenger Peru at this point has already ignited an ardour which only a total car crash of a remaining body of songs could deflate.
Pollen Season takes no time in showing no such disaster is on the cards though as mentioned before, the album never treads the same lofty levels again. To put that into context though the following tracks prey on and build their own benchmark which most bands would swap their grannies for, the third song on the release a beguiling proposition of organic beauty around once more a bass treat you can only enthuse over with a tendency to drool, and a percussive enterprise which does not steal focus but would leave a major whole with its absence. Seriously magnetic, the song departs the now raging appetite for the album for the epidemically engaging pop absorptions of Tiger Lilly and Heavy Drugs to take over. The first of the two has a swagger and melodic grin which teases and charms but an equally solicitous sonic and rhythmic bruising to its latter swing whilst the second is a sultry summer breeze of radiant melodies within an increasingly dark and unsettling premise.
The second half of the album starts with Weak Numbers, again a track which ensnares thoughts and appreciation but marks a slightly less potent stretch for the album. The front five tracks leave the latter quintet in their shadow though once more in a context where Passenger Peru is on another realm with their artistry at the start of the album and a still immensely impressive level thereafter. A gentle and smouldering embrace, the song is a melancholic incitement with celestial elegance aligned to a tempestuous but contained emotive brawl. It is a transfixing companion immediately supported by the exotically imagined Memory Garden and the enthralling, intensive fascination of Health System, a song which merges heavy and light melodic and intimidating textures into a weave of emotion entangling beauty with XTC like alchemy.
The new single from the album Dirt Nap comes next, emerging with a slight Celtic lilt to its sonic beckoning before a predominately acoustic caressing ensues with a sense of The Wonder Stuff to its snare. Initially thoughts were not over excited by the song but over time it works its way under the skin to seduce though personally not the right choice as the single to lure people into the outstanding album, a record holding back another major treat for its closing offering. Life and Death of a Band is a rowdy and antagonistic romp but equally a ridiculously endearing and alluring temptress from a maelstrom of invention and creative intrigue and a quite brilliant finale to a breath-taking slab of pop excellence.
Passenger Peru will be massive at some point with all the evidence resting and burning away in their debut, a journey as unique and awe inspiring as their name hints at.
http://www.passengerperuband.com/
http://passengerperu.bandcamp.com/
9/10
RingMaster 05/02/2014
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
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and dreamy if shadowed relationships. As shown by opener Redhead, a track which from a seemingly singular subject embraces all never to be seemingly submissive prejudices, the music written and presented on the album coats and reflects the words with a rich and deep understanding to the lyrical missive. The first song makes a slow and reserved entrance before a piano coaxing welcomes in the fine expressive tones of Sojo, both soon wrapped in the arms of delicious emotive strings, an evocation which constantly seduces and succeeds across the whole of the album. There is a quiet but firm drama to the song too, a seemingly personal angst expelled through heated enterprise which only increases the immediate and lingering lure of the track.
With keen melodies and crisp rhythms around the mellow tones of Loughran, the song certainly provides a pleasing encounter but something feels missing, a spark to ignite the imagination. There is a Dire Straits lilt to the melodic design cast by the guitars whilst vocal harmonies embrace their lure with an appealing tempting of their own but there is a low key energy or maybe unoriginality to the track which prevents it taking as much attention as its design deserves.
past few years. This meant that the album faced expectations but it is fair to say it pushed them aside to emerge an even more vibrant and irrepressible encounter than imagined. Produced by Dominy alongside Taylor and Parish and released on Smile Records, Rise And Shine goes straight for the feet and passions with its title track. The song is total contagion, from the moment the opening soar of harmonies and keys behind the mellow tones of Taylor stroke the ear it teases with a seducing wantonness which explodes into one of the catchiest tunes heard this year. Bred from the seeds of sixties pop, the song romps and strolls with a massive smile in its melodies kissed by brass spawned sunspots. The eighties reference is most apt and virulent right away as the starter has voice in league with its stomp and like the best pop songs, becomes an old friend within moments.
haunting lure to which attention is inevitable and full focus given once the vocals of Scott enter to caress the ears. Her voice is a smooth and mouth-watering melodic flame but one which is emphasised even more in other tracks as having keen adventure to its invention like her music. With repetition a contagious air to a harmonically droning enchantment the track is an enthralling start for the album one which is lifted another level by the following You To Me. A lone guitar strokes the ears first before soon being joined by Scott, her voice finding an organic texture which is as honest as the narrative it portrays. With restrained military rhythmic juggling skirting the vocals and guitar, there is an undefined familiarity about the song which adds to its instant appeal whilst the building spires of rock bred emotive and intensive melodic fire only provides a stronger pleasure to eagerly enjoy.
Twang, Kings Of Leon) who also worked on its predecessor. The result with Dust and Stone is a song which makes easy work of drawing full attention and inspiring up strong intrigue for what the band has in store. From its opening seconds the track dances gently with ears and thoughts, the guitars of Dan Tombs and Shaun Kelly weaving an elegant pattern around the expressive vocals of Kelly backed by the smouldering vocals of Liz Sheils. The rhythm section upon the track is respectful and generous to the woven melodic beauty and though relatively understated veins the adventure with evocative dark lines and firm beats from Gaz Worton and Woz Meadows respectively. There is a country rock tease to the song throughout which adds to the rich hues of the song but equally the guitar invention and enticement provides a sense of Lightning Seeds and in little ways, The Farmers Boys which only enhances the flirtation with the passions.
album, Collectable You sees Greenwood assisted by a fine group of musicians to realise her songs, a line-up on the album including keyboardist James Hallawell of The Waterboys, bassist/cellist Arnulf Lindler (KT Tunstall), and drummer Martyn Barker (Billy Bragg/Beth Gibbons). It is a mix which helps light up the vibrant songwriting which starts with opener Break In Break Out. The song takes little time in smooching with the ears; Greenwood’s smouldering vocals and an excellent melancholic cello embrace instantly an irresistible temptation alongside a classical emotive elegance crafted by the keys. Into its stride there emerges an eruption of a full flight of melodic passion within colour soaked melodic skies whilst a brass coaxing within only elevates a greater rapture in the passions.